Wednesday June 28, 2006

I am officially exhausted. I just got back from visiting the Castle Museum, the Jorvik Viking exhibit, and the Yorkshire Museum. I also noted on my return that my sandals are about to just as officially die. There's a hole in the left one and the seams that I was worried about when I left the states have worsened. Nevertheless, I still hope to eke them out through the trip.

The Castle Museum is an interesting look into primarily nineteenth-century England. Despite the period not being as interesting to me as others, I rather enjoyed the exhibits and displays. They did a very good job of putting the items in a period atmosphere, including having people in period garb discussing some of the professions.

I then headed back to the Yorkshire Museum but stopped at the Jorvik exhibit. This is archaeoDisney. In all actuality the archaeological stuff was excellent and intriguing, but they play some silly games with their visitors about time travel capsules and what not and then put you on what is essentially a Disney ride. They did have some excellent exhibits at the end you could walk through, including some re-enactors, and I took some cool pictures of stuff, but the whole thing could have been better without the Disneyish aspects. The store was, however, very cool, and I bought more books.

I will point out to all of you who are enjoying this blog, you could reward me by buying me the Damascus Viking sword they had there. It was only 375 pounds and it is stunning. Not quite as stunning as the Calontir sword of state made by Angus John, but stunning nonetheless.

Then I went to the Yorkshire Museum. Of all the museums I've seen on the trip, including the British Museum, this one was the most fun. They are currently doing an exhibit on Constantine the Great, meaning there's lots of Roman and Romano-British artifacts. More importantly, they have a really large Anglo-Saxon and Viking age exhibit including the Coppergate Helmet. I had not realized from the pictures I had seen of it how beautiful that helm really is. The engraving on the crest and nasal was stunning. But there's lots more there. Yes, Maerwynn, I even took pictures of textile stuff, jewelry, and other non-sword items.

Anyway, this museum is worth another trip, though I'm not likely to do it this time. And as for pictures, I have about 80 more to upload when I get the chance.

Now, however, there's a bit of a nap in my future, then dinner, then a pub. Oh, it's a hard life.